People's Democracy

THE 38^th annual conference of Kerala NGO Union was inaugurated by V S Achuthanandan, LDF convenor, in Thiruvananthapuram on June 11 by paying floral tributes to the martyrs and recording condolence on the deaths of eminent leaders and workers of the NGO union. Achuthanandan called upon the government employees to be vigilant on the possible steps of the new government to sabotage the people’s participatory local development system and denial of rights of workers and employees. He also wanted the employees to make the services efficient to meet the demands from the people and called upon them to be part of the general struggle to afford relief to the people. The delegates were later addressed by Pinarayi Vijayan, state secretary of CPM, T Sivadasa Menon. There was also a seminar on ‘Secularism’ which was inaugurated by renowned historian Dr K N Panicker. Dr Thaneja, Kaniapuram Ramachandran and others also participated in the seminar. The conference ended on June 12. The conference adopted a resolution calling up on all employees to join the national strike on July 25.

THE state secretariat of CPI(M), in a statement issued on June 11 accused the Congress led UDF of shielding the rowdyism of the Muslim League at Nadapuram in Kozhikode district, where the league criminals have murdered CPM workers and set fire to a number of houses of CPI(M) workers after looting all the valuables in the houses. A number of shops of CPI(M) sympathizers were also looted and destroyed. Secretariat said that these atrocities under the protection of power and police will not help to reestablish peace in Nadapuram and that a government should not be so ineffective to such provocations.

K Karunakaran, senior Congress leader, speaking to mediapersons at Kochi said that the home department has failed to handle the Nadapuram incidents which had been due to failure on the part of the police. He also said that the incidents are not the creations of CPI(M) and the police actions resulted in tension in the area.

A WELL armed gang of RSS-BJP had arrived at Kurumathar in Pathanamthitta district, on the Friday evening and suddenly fell upon Ajayakumar, a CPI(M) worker. The palm of right hand of Ajayakumar was chopped off by the criminals. The gang also attacked all those who were present at the junction and suddenly vanished in the autorikshaw. Ajayakumar was since admitted at a specialist hospital at Kochi.

V S ACHUTHANANDAN, leader of opposition, demanded the prime minister to stop the import of 30,000 tons of rubber so as to save the rubber producers of the state who are suffering immense loss due to a fall in the price of rubber. He also demanded a review of the present quantitative restrictions of import of rubber and rubber products, being further liberalized.